Michniów is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of Gmina Suchedniów, within

Skarżysko County __NOTOC__ Skarżysko County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms p ...

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship ( ), also known as Holy Cross Voivodeship, is a voivodeship (province) in southeastern Poland, in the historical region of Lesser Poland. The province's capital and largest city is Kielce. The voivodeship takes its ...

, in south-central Poland. It lies approximately south of

Suchedniów Suchedniów is a town in Skarżysko County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains ...

, south-west of

Skarżysko-Kamienna Skarżysko-Kamienna () is a city in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in south-central Poland by Kamienna (river), Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major cities. Prior to 1928, it bore the name ...

, and north-east of the regional capital

Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...

Michniów massacre

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the region of Michniów was occupied by the Germans from September 1939 until January 1945. Under

the occupation ''The Occupation'' is a single-player adventure video game developed by White Paper Games and released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on 5 March 2019. The game takes place in a single government building, in real-time over f ...

, it was one of the local centres of the Polish

underground resistance Underground Resistance (commonly abbreviated to UR) are an American musical collective from Detroit, Michigan. Producing primarily Detroit techno since 1990 with a grungy four-track musical aesthetic, they are also renowned for their militant ...

movement. On 12–13 July 1943, the population of Michniów was massacred by the German Police units of the 17th and the 22nd Police Regiments,Michnów Mausoleum
at Muzeum Wsi Kieleckiej commanded by Hauptmann Gerulf Mayer,Bogdan Hildebrandt (in Polish), ''Partyzantka na Kielecczyźnie 1939-1945'', Wydawnictwo MON, Warsaw 1970, p. 173-174 in punishment for the partisan activity in the area. In the first massacre, on 12 July 1943, 98 men were burned alive locked in barns. The same night, the partisans headed by Jan Piwnik "Ponury", made a retaliatory assault on a German train from Kraków to Warsaw. The Germans returned to the village the next day and committed a second punitive massacre. During two days, at least 203 inhabitants were killed: 103 men, 53 women and 47 children. After ad hoc investigation, a further 11 persons, the only ones suspected by the Germans of underground activities, were sent to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

, where 6 died. The village was then completely burned. After the war, Michniów was resettled again. The village became one of the best-known symbols of the Nazi German atrocities committed in rural Poland, although there were several greater massacres. From early 1980s, on the initiative of the '' Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce'' a museum and a mausoleum to all Polish pacified villages was built in Michniów.

References

External links

Michnów
at Muzeum Wsi Kieleckiej (Kielce Regional Folk Museum), retrieved 19-7-2010. {{Authority control Villages in Skarżysko County Sites of World War II massacres of Poles